


hey girl i'm waiting on you

by endquestionmark, soaringrachel



Series: oh there you go (undress to impress) [2]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, The Like
Genre: Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, F/F, Sex Work, Strippers & Strip Clubs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 00:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2753537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endquestionmark/pseuds/endquestionmark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/soaringrachel/pseuds/soaringrachel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She points right at Vicky-T, who distinctly feels her heart do a little flip. Her heart hasn’t budged in <i>ages</i>. Her heart is a fucking <i>stone</i>.</p><p>“Who <i>are</i> you?” Patrick is saying, which. Who <i>cares</i>.</p><p>“Who cares?” the girl says. “Just write Z on the checks.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	hey girl i'm waiting on you

**Author's Note:**

> We did promise more. Here is more, this time a bit sadder and more serious. Not the last, either.  
> We’ve given up trying to portion out blame, as well. Partners in grime.
> 
> Warning once again for unrealistic depictions/glamorization of this particular brand of sex work, not to mention bartending, and mentions of alcohol. Title is, naturally, from One Direction’s “Live While We’re Young.”

“Vicky-T,” Pete says, leaning on the bar. This is funny for multiple reasons, mostly because he’s too short to properly lean over it and has to settle for perching on a stool and propping his chin up on his elbows and doing his best to compensate for the combined effect with a million-watt grin.

“Pete,” she says, polishing a glass.

“Our international woman of mystery,” he says. Pete’s been needling her about her past for two weeks now, which is unfair in her opinion. There’s no way there’s anything about him that’s interesting enough to take up all the time he spends bugging her about herself.

She smirks. “Did you bring the champagne for me?”

He grins. “Did you think I’d forget?”

It’s a month since the club opened, to the day, and if that weren’t reason enough to celebrate, they turned a profit for the first time last night -- Patrick was all cautious about this just being the first step on a long road uphill, but he also started making noise about someone to help her out behind the bar and mirrored walls for the practice room, so she thinks he’s as excited as she and the other non-business degree types are. Anyway, whatever is happening in the world of number-crunching, Pete hops off the stool, honest-to-God disappearing for a moment, and reappears hoisting a crate of bottles onto the bar. “Nothing but the best,” he says, which means it’s wholesale and two steps above Martinelli’s. 

“Oh hey, booze,” Bill says, coming up behind Vicky-T, and she swats him on the ear.

“Not now,” she says, “unless you want Pete to cross-examine you too.”  
“Well now,” Pete says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Now that I’d pay to see,” Vicky-T says raising one of her own, and Pete yelps.

“Sexual harassment!” he says. “Patrick!”

“Make Frank deal with it,” Patrick says distantly, from where he’s running the budget at one of the tables -- new and considerably less rickety.

“Frank!” Pete calls, and he comes wandering over.

“Oh, hey, booze,” Frank says.

++

They finally impress on everyone that champagne is for _after_ dancing, and send the boys back to get changed before they open for the night. Frank joins Vicky-T behind the bar, where she’s making a sign to hang up explaining why they’re celebrating.

She draws thick marker strokes down the page while he babbles to her about some bad date he went on last weekend, some guy who, apparently, looked like a fireman but kissed like a nurse. “How about you,” he asks, “any better luck?”

There are a lot of possible answers, from _yes_ to _no_ to _but he’s battery-powered_. She shakes her head instead.

“Men,” Frank says.

“And women,” she adds, and Frank laughs.

“I mean,” he says, “I’ll take your word for it.”

Vicky-T grins. “Not a bad idea,” she says. “More trouble than they’re worth, really.”

Which is, of course, when the most gorgeous woman she’s ever seen walks through the front door.

She’s blonde, short hair just messy enough, lips painted red. She’s shorter than Vicky-T -- just short enough to fit under her arm, Vicky-T thinks, and nearly blushes.

Patrick, surprisingly, actually looks up from his paperwork. He furrows his brow. “Can I help you?” he says, politely, as always, which is a contrast to the way Frank’s already up on his toes, bouncing a little in anticipation.

“Do you do yoga?” she says. “Because I could really use a partner for my double-fold, but failing that, you’re gonna need some extra help tonight, right?”

“What,” Patrick says, utterly nonplussed.

“Busy night coming up,” she says, and shrugs. “News gets around.”

“You’re not --” Patrick says, and then stops, composes himself, and continues. “Not to -- please don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not typically what our clientele is looking for.”

“Nah,” she says, “I was just thinking I could give her a hand.”

She points right at Vicky-T, who distinctly feels her heart do a little flip. Her heart hasn’t budged in _ages_. Her heart is a fucking _stone_.

“Who _are_ you?” Patrick is saying, which. Who _cares_.

“Who cares?” the girl says. “Just write Z on the checks.”

++

Z isn’t a better bartender than Vicky-T, which gives her a little kick of competitive pleasure. Which isn’t to say she isn’t good, she just isn’t _better_. Gabe makes _I see you_ fingers at Vicky-T and nearly fucks up the new routine he’s made up to “Party in the USA” in the process; she sticks her tongue out in revenge and nearly fucks up the Manhattan she’s mixing.

“Nice,” Z says.

“Hey,” Vicky-T says, slightly nettled.

“No, I mean, actually nice,” she says. “Long legs, hands to match. Nice.”

“Oh,” Vicky-T says, “you’re straight.” Maybe she shouldn’t say it so bluntly but--she really did think. Well.

Z laughs a little.

“You don’t have to be straight to think _that_ ,” she says, pointing her chin at Gabe running a hand through his hair, “is nice.”

“No,” Vicky-T says, blood rushing in her ears, “don’t I fucking know it.”

Z grins then, a proper smile, not the too-cool smirk she’s been wearing that’s already all too familiar to Vicky-T from her own aching facial muscles at the end of a night of mild harassment and even stupider drink orders. It shocks Vicky-T into a smile of her own.

“Check this one out,” she says, as Travie takes the stage, “even nicer.”

“And actually _nice_ , I’d bet,” Z says.

“No shit,” Vicky-T says, and pauses, one hand on the bar rag and the other to her face. She’s not sure whether to watch Travie or Z watching Travie. (This is a lie.) She’s not sure whether the flush sitting high on her cheeks is from Z, cutting her eyes back to give Vicky-T another proper smile, or Gabe, who’s currently putting his feet up at the back of the club on an unattended table and making trouble. (Not a lie.) Vicky-T is only in the business of lying to herself about fifty percent of the time.

“This job has some perks, yeah?” Z says to her, giving Travie an appreciative look, and Vicky-T nods, giving Z’s shoulder’s in her too-big T-shirt a look of her own.

“Yeah,” she says, “I’d say that.”

++

They pop the champagne at midnight, in various overly suggestive ways, and distribute plastic flutes. By the time it comes around to staff, they’re drinking out of red Solo shot glasses, because they’ve vastly underestimated the number of flutes they’re going to need and the number of patrons in attendance.

“Bottoms up,” Z says, and throws hers back the way Vicky-T is absolutely certain you are not supposed to do with champagne, regardless of how shitty it is.

“Cheers,” she responds, and does the same, because she really can’t shake that competitive streak, and flips her glass.

“Are we really doing champagne shots?” Travie says. “We are _classy_ here at the bar.”

“Do we have ice cream?” Bill says. “Can I put ice cream in mine?”

Patrick makes what is rapidly becoming familiar as his oh-God-I’ve-hired-a-child face. Vicky-T has also noticed him making it at Pete on occasion, which is no surprise really.

“Do we have ice cream in a _strip club_ ,” Patrick says. “For those rare occasions when someone wants to eat a sundae off of--” and he cuts himself off, going pink.

“We have ice cream,” Z says.

“What?” Patrick says.

“What?” Vicky-T says, even more surprised.

“We have ice cream,” Z repeats. “Emergency supplies.”

“No, I just -- how did you _know_ about my ice cream?” Vicky-T says, gesticulating. “Nobody knows about my ice cream!”

“I looked in the freezer?” Z says. “Do none of you look in the freezer?”

“I will _now_ ,” says Bill, and reaches over the bar to get the carton.

Vicky-T finds some stirring spoons and passes them out -- Frank rather mournfully declines -- and they find themselves gathered around the bar to the soundtrack of “Umbrella” and the sight of Gabe and Pete trying to out-dance each other on the stage.

“Tragically beautiful,” Z says.

“I don’t know,” Patrick says, “it has potential.”

“Because you’re completely objective,” Travie says, smirking.

“I am!” Patrick says, going an adorable furious shade of pink. “And you should talk, anyway,” he mutters, sticking his spoon in the ice cream.

Vicky-T laughs.

“Welcome to Angels and Kings, Z, we’re all just a giant clusterfuck of mutual attraction.”

“Oh, are we?” Z says, and smirks, and then it’s Vicky-T’s turn to hurriedly fill her mouth with ice cream. In the background, the floor erupts in cheers; Gabe has apparently repurposed his scarf on Pete’s wrists.

Bill is right. Ice cream and champagne really do make a good combination. Vicky goes for another shot glass and barely thinks about Z’s smirk at all.

++

Vicky-T’s wiping down the bar at three one Thursday morning in December when Gabe hoists himself up and swings his legs over to her side.

“I was cleaning that, asshole,” she says, swatting him with the rag; he closes his eyes when it hits, so he’s still a little high from performing.

“Queen Victoria,” he croons, “just checking in on my best girl.”

“Bet you say that to all of them,” she says, and pointedly wipes around him.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m saving myself, sweetheart.”

“Why are you even here?” she asks, not unkindly. “You finished up ages ago.”

Gabe shrugs. “Cold as balls out,” he says. “And I don’t honestly feel like listening to pipes knocking all night.”

Vicky-T pauses a moment -- it’s been a while since she’s done this, not since the coffeeshop days, but, well, what the hell.

“Come to mine?” she says.

Gabe cocks his head. Vicky-T gets the sense that he’s not used to having his bluff called. “Tempting,” he says, “but promise me you won’t take it wrong if I say no?”

“Please,” she scoffs. “You wish. I know you think I’m hot shit, Saporta.”

Gabe grins. “The hottest. Rain check, okay? The flesh is willing but the soul is weak.”

“That’s a new one,” Vicky-T says. “But promising.”

“That’s me,” Gabe says. “Promising all night long.”

Vicky grins and swats him with the rag again. “No hard feelings, really, Gabe.”

“Sadly,” Gabe says, looking into his lap mournfully, and she can’t help laughing.

“Precisely.”

++

Gabe warns Vicky-T about New Year’s when they’re both working Christmas; Pete is there too, and some buddy of Frank’s stepping in on the door, but everyone else has been given the night off. It’s pretty quiet anyway; apparently Christmas isn’t a big strip club night.

“Vicky-T’s first strip club Christmas,” Gabe coos at her on his break.

“It’s so chill,” she says, because she’s used to working retail and food service, the kind of places that have a Christmas rush.

“Wait for New Year’s,” Gabe says and tells her stories of every New Year’s he’s spent in a strip club until Pete yells at him that even Pete Wentz can’t keep the crowd happy alone. “All right, all right!” Gabe shouts back, and goes out to “earn my keep, babe.”

 _Busy night, then_ , Victoria thinks, and distinctly doesn’t hope.

++

Bill, bless his ingenue heart, turns up for New Year’s wearing a party hat, the triangular sort with elastic and a little sparkly pompom; Vicky-T immediately hops up on the bar to steal it, which is why when Z walks in, looking flawless as always, Vicky-T is literally wrapped around Bill, legs around his waist and fists flailing, as he bends over backwards trying to keep his hat out of her hands.

“Oh,” she says, “hello, Z,” because what else _can_ you say?

Z raises her eyebrows. “Hi,” she says. “Celebrating early?”

Vicky-T finally succeeds in getting the elastic out from under Bill’s chin without throttling him and hops off the bar, hat-bearing and triumphant. “Tell Bill,” she says, “that he _cannot_ strip wearing a party hat.”

“Follow your heart, Bill,” Z advises. “But I’m pretty sure you’d get it caught in your shirt and die of holiday asphyxiation or something. Or hyperfestivity.”

Bill frowns. “I’m actually pretty good at my job,” he says. “Pete said so.”

“He’s good at his job,” Vicky-T explains, putting the hat on a wine bottle. “He’s just not good at normal human functioning.”

Bill shrugs. “I’ll take it,” he allows, and runs off to find Travie, leaving Vicky-T alone with Z.

She’s cut her hair; it seems to be all bangs, asymmetrical across her face and still that same honey-blond. In deference to the holiday, Vicky-T supposes, she’s put on a high-necked dress and fishnets, and what looks like an inch-thick ring of eyeliner.

“Miss me?” she asks, coming behind the bar and starting to help Vicky-T with her prep.

“Like a hole in the head,” Vicky-T says, but can’t suppress a smile. “Been keeping yourself busy?”

“Oh, you know,” Z says. “The usual. Instagram fame. Saving kittens. Anatomically improbable contortions for completely unappreciative classes.”

“ _Huh_ ,” Vicky-T manages.

“You?” Z says. “What about you and your tall drink of water?”

“Not mine,” Vicky-T says. “Gabe is a natural phenomenon. Can you really own a sunset?”

“I could _try_ ,” Z says, looking speculative. Something curls in Vicky-T’s stomach, arousal or jealousy or, to be real, both.

“I’d like to see you try,” she scoffs, and then, thank fuck, Patrick calls doors, and it’s the long countdown to midnight, dance after dance and drink after drink, and no room to consider that, yes, she really _would_.

++

Vicky-T doesn’t look at the clock until, to her shock, it’s fifteen minutes to midnight. “Amazing how time flies when people want you to pour champagne up their asses,” she says to Z.

“People want that all the time,” Z says. “Tonight’s only special ‘cause they’re telling me so.”

Vicky-T laughs, feeling a bit like she’s in high school again, worrying about whether she’s laughing too loud at a crush’s joke. _Victoria Asher_ , she tells herself, _this ain’t high school_ , and when she reaches up for a tall tumbler next she lets herself brush against Z, shoulder to hip.

Z doesn’t lean into it, but she doesn’t flinch away, which. Is promising, maybe. Vicky-T doesn’t know if she trusts herself anymore, not when it comes to Z’s enigmatic smiles and any favor she might be showing her. 

Pete dances, and then Travie, and then Gabe and Bill together as the clock counts the last seconds down to midnight. “Ladies, gentlemen, honorifics of choice!” Pete says, from the makeshift light booth where he’s playing with the follow spot. “Find someone special, grab a drink, and count down with me.” The dancers stream off the stage into the crowd, hands reaching for them, and disperse; Pete slings an arm around a harangued-looking Patrick’s shoulder. “Ten! Nine!”

On seven, someone’s token straight friend makes eyes at Vicky-T, and she shakes him off; he’s pretty enough, but he’s not what she’s looking for tonight.

On two, she looks over at Z.

“One!” Pete shouts, and then his “Happy New Year!” is muffled more by something that sounds more like Patrick’s hand than his mouth.

Z does nothing but half-smile at the crowd, Gabe with one of the prettier patrons, Bill and Travie cuddling.

Vicky-T’s not disappointed. She really isn’t -- heart of _stone_ \-- but she really thought. Well. In any case, the lights change, the music starts, and Gabe takes the stage again as the crowd takes their seats.

Just as Gabe executes a twirl that has the crowd whooping, Vicky-T feels a hand on her arm, and then Z’s kissing her, quick but dirty, hands on each side of her face, before spinning away for the tequila.

She pours the shot, then touches Vicky-T’s arm again, leans in and whispers “Come back to mine after?”

Vicky-T grins and pours herself a glass of champagne. Happy fucking New Year.

++

“This,” Vicky-T says, yanking at the neck of Z’s dress, “is a fucking _pain_.”

“Only because you’re part vampire or something,” Z huffs, and they take another step into her hallway. Something clatters, and Z swears -- she lives, somewhat improbably, above a yoga studio, though everything about Z is improbable so perhaps that’s fitting. So far, they’ve been too busy to find the light switch, so it’s not a massive surprise when they ricochet off the hall table. Something else crashes to the floor, and Vicky-T pauses in kicking off her heels, pinning Z to the wall.

“Oops,” she breathes, grinning at Z, who rolls her eyes.

“Get down here and kiss me,” Z says, imperious as ever, even in the progressive wreckage of her apartment, and Vicky-T does, slow and open-mouthed and dirty, licking along her lower lip and into her mouth, pulling back just enough that Z has to lean into it, and then further.

“Yeah?” she whispers, and smiles.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Z says, “if I’d _known_ you were going to be this much of a fucking tease I’d have kissed you months ago, and then maybe sometime in the next, oh, year, you’ll actually _touch_ me? Is that a thing we can do?”

“Eh,” Vicky-T says. “I’m thinking about it.”

“So am I,” Z says, and then she’s reaching up again and taking Vicky-T’s face in her hands, running her teeth over Vicky-T’s bottom lip. “C’mon,” she mutters, pulling away for a second, “bedroom’s this way, come _on_.”

Bedroom, it turns out, is a massive futon on the floor, piled high with blankets and pillows, not to mention a few dirty stockings and a couple of paperback books. Z flings herself back on it and gives that little half smile. “Coming down here?”

Vicky-T is, momentarily, lost for words. In the half-streetlight, she feels like she’s stepped into a story, something bigger than herself that she can follow like a thread out of the dark.

“I said, are you coming?” Z whines, and Vicky-T snorts.

“I hope so,” she says, and then the moment’s broken. She pulls her dress up over her hips and straddles Z, settling over her and inching her dress up a little at a time.

“God,” Z says, “come on,” and it’s worth it for that, for Z breathless and shifting under her, as Vicky-T pulls her dress over her head and lets it fall. “ _God_ ,” Z says, in entirely another tone of voice, and runs her hands up Vicky-T’s sides. Vicky-T can’t help laughing a bit, not meanly, just enjoying Z’s impatience and reaction.

“You’re still wearing clothes,” she says, because this is both true and a grave injustice.

“Gonna do something about that?” Z says, and Vicky-T rolls her eyes, because she never has been able to back down from a challenge.

Z’s dress is riding up over her legs and pulled down a little at the neck, but it still needs unbuttoning to come off -- Vicky-T leans down to do it, pausing in between buttons to mouth along Z’s collarbone, scraping with her teeth, and Z hisses and arches up into it, hands coming up to tangle in Vicky-T’s hair, and then, thank God, the last button’s done and Z’s doing some yoga-girl move and suddenly is undressed in Vicky-T’s arms, except for the fishnets, rough against Vicky-T’s own legs. She slides against them a little, enjoying the feeling, and leans down to press a kiss to the slope of Z’s breast, cupping the other with her spare hand and thumbing over Z’s nipple, soft at first but rougher when Z breathes hard and fast. 

“I’m not going to break, darling,” Z says, and Vicky-T laughs from her vantage point, chin propped up on Z’s sternum.

“Not about that,” she says, and to prove it, fastens her teeth around Z’s nipple, tugging gently before soothing with the flat of her tongue. Z sighs, long and shaky, and Vicky-T does it again, letting her fingers drift down, across Z’s hip, where she presses into her hipbone, just a trace of nails to feel Z gasp against her cheek, and pulls at the waistband of her fishnets. “These,” she says, “are gonna need to go.”

“Be creative,” Z says, voice a little shaky, and Vicky-T -- isn’t _new_ to this, but it’s always nice to know the effect she can have on people.

“Fine,” Vicky-T says, and stops groping Z long enough to get both hands wrapped up in the stocking material and pull, ripping them right between the legs.

There’s a startled moment of silence and then Z bursts out laughing. “Fuck,” she says, still breathless, “I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t expecting that --” and then Vicky-T slides a hand between her legs, flexes her fingers to feel. Z’s wet through her lace underwear, Vicky-T can feel it, and she traces a line with her index finger, does it again when Z shifts her hips to get closer, and then slips her hand under the waistband. “Fingers first,” Z says, hands tight on Vicky-T’s shoulders, and Vicky-T is all too happy to oblige.

Z, she finds out, is not loud in the conventional sense, but breathy; when Vicky-T crooks her fingers she gasps, and when she speeds up Z vocalizes, just a little, feathery sounds that make Vicky-T close her eyes and press her forehead into Z’s shoulder.

Z licks her lips and Vicky-T echoes her, biting her own lip. “Yeah,” Z gasps, “come on,” and reaches down with her other hand, fumbling a little at first but setting up a rhythm, speeding up, and Z tips her head back, grabs at Vicky-T’s shoulders, hips, legs shaking. “God,” she says, “ _God_ ,” and Vicky-T recognizes the rhythm of her hips and breathing, slows down and takes her through it, until Z grabs at her wrist, tugs her hand away.

“Good?” Vicky-T asks, because sometimes she’s an asshole like that, and Z pulls her down flush against her and kisses her, sweet and easy, reaches behind her and unhooks her bra.

“God, you’re hot,” Z says, which isn’t a yes, but Vicky-T will take it in a pinch. She flushes.

“You’re welcome,” she says, because, okay, maybe it’s a little more than sometimes that she’s kind of an asshole.

“God,” Z laughs, and then kisses her again. It’s a lazy, long kiss, and Vicky-T enjoys it until she finds herself moving against Z’s thigh, less and less lazy.

Z smirks against Vicky-T’s mouth. “Someone’s impatient,” she says, and immediately softens it by stroking over the small of her back, which is just unfair. “Let me go down on you?” Z asks, smiling a little, and Vicky-T half-shrugs and lies back.

“I _mean_ ,” she says. “I _guess_. If you _want_.”

“Fuck you,” Z says, but she grins, and slips her fingers under the waistband of Vicky-T’s underwear.

“That’s the idea,” Vicky-T can’t resist saying, and then yelps when Z pokes her in the ribs. “Unfair! Unfair!”

“Well, if you’d shut _up_ for a minute,” Z says, and tugs her underwear off. Judging by their trajectory they end up on a lamp or something. Vicky-T decides against saying _make me_ , and, a moment later, is profoundly grateful for her own foresight when Z flicks her tongue against Vicky-T’s clit, sharp and sudden, and then licks from bottom to top, skating along her folds and pressing a sucking kiss to the top every time she gets there, harder each time. “God,” Vicky-T manages, “stop _teasing_ ,” which she realizes is probably not a great thing for her of all people to say, not if she wants Z to keep doing that thing where she licks just barely around the edges of her cunt, two fingers deep and fluttering her tongue.

Sure enough, Z pulls back a moment and laughs, low and pleased. “You’re welcome,” she says, and pulls her fingers out -- gently, but Vicky-T still whines -- before she presses on either side of Vicky-T’s clit with her thumbs (not too hard, but enough that she _feels_ it) and purses her lips, and sucks.

Vicky-T swears, and arches her back so hard she comes off the blankets, both hands tangled in Z’s short hair for purchase. It’s almost too much, too focused, but it grounds her, pulls her out of her head and into the moment, and she almost sobs with the intensity of it, shaking through her orgasm and probably pulling Z’s hair hard enough to be impolite. Z just _keeps going_ , too, and eventually Vicky-T shoves her away, curls up on her side, chest heaving, and tries to catch her breath.

“Good?” Z echoes, evil smirk on her face.

“You’re a fucking _menace_ ,” Vicky-T manages. “Seriously, you should be classified as a weapon.”

“They don’t let me on airplanes,” Z says, so completely deadpan that Vicky-T isn’t sure she’s not telling the truth. “Also, I’m illegal in California.”

Vicky laughs, but it’s sleepy -- it’s very late, or very early, and she finds herself curling around Z, the warmth of her breath and her body, and then asleep, tangled in blankets.

++

In the morning, the bed is empty. There isn’t a note, but from the music thumping through the floor there’s a class on downstairs -- _New Year’s Day_ , Vicky-T thinks, _us little people just can’t catch a break_ \-- and her underwear is definitely on the lamp sitting on the floor by the outlet.

So that’s that. Vicky-T picks her things up, takes her time getting dressed -- she doesn’t particularly want Z to come back up, doesn’t want to have to deal with any potential awkwardness, but doesn’t want to slink out as quickly as possible either. Those days are over.

And she’s sort of hoping Z’s left a note somewhere in the chaos of the room that she’s just missed -- something with her phone number on it, so they can see each other before the next time Z walks into her gin joint.

But eventually she’s run out of excuses to keep poking around, so she finds the back stairs and leaves to the pounding beat of “Kids in America.” 

She gets in to work a little late that evening, and Gabe smirks at her when she comes through the door. She shakes her head. “Not in the mood,” she says, and the smirk melts off his face into -- not something _approaching_ concern, per se, but something a little softer, anyway.

“Hey, Vicky-T,” he says, coming over and slinging his arms around her neck, “everything good in the land of milk and honey?”

“Never better,” she says.

“Good to know,” he says, “same here,” and pulls a face. She turns around and hugs him.

“Come on,” she says, “help me prep the bar and we can talk about how good everything is.”

“Start as you mean to go on,” he says. “We’re bound for a great fucking year, my girl.”

“Nothing but the best for my crew,” Vicky-T says, and almost believes it.

Gabe’s tended bar before, though he’s terrible at it, so Vicky-T can set him to slicing lemons without worrying he’ll chop his hand open.

“So what’s it with you?” he says.

“Girl trouble,” Vicky-T tells him, letting the cliche take care of her emotions for her. “And you?”

“The usual,” Gabe says bitterly. “It’s too fucking cold in Chicago.”

“Lake effect’s a killer,” she says idly, stripping mint leaves off their stems for mojitos. It’s true -- she likes to think she’s settled into Chicago well, but there are times when the East Coast’s siren song gets loud, in the lonelier hours of the morning, or when she misses real pizza.

“Girl trouble, huh?” Gabe says, and she likes that he says it like he knows all the things she put into it. He bumps shoulders with her companionably. “Keep on, Vicky-T.”

She smiles despite herself. “Keep on, Gabe.”

++

Up until New Year’s, one of Vicky-T’s favorite perks of the job was her front row seat to some of the prettiest boys in Chicago. As winter drags on, though, she feels gayer than she ever has. She doesn’t hear from Z, but she dreams about her often enough, notices girls on the street that look like her, seeks out a woman when she seeks someone out.

Still, it doesn’t mean she can’t appreciate the new dancers Pete and Patrick have finally hired after weeks of talking about it, who are exceptionally pretty and brothers to boot, though she hadn’t realized it from the outset.

“Are they married?” she still remembers asking Pete, though with a significant amount of horror added in hindsight. “Because, you know, the name, plus they’re always all over each other--” which was when Pete, whose eyes had been widening over the course of the sentence, completely broke down and howled with laughter.

“They’re _brothers_ , Vicky-T,” he’d said. “That’s why. Because they’re _brothers_.”

Anyway. Now, two weeks later, she’s more or less over her initial mortification, or at least enough so to appreciate how Gerard looks in a slip, and how Mikey looks, inexplicably, in anything. Which is why she’s rather intently focused on watching them rehearse for their big debut onstage when Z pushes through the door and back into her life.

At first, Vicky-T isn’t even sure it’s her. It’s been a long winter of staring after short-haired blonde women in crowds, trying to place Z’s easy grace and cocky smile. And her hair’s grown out into a shoulder-length messy bob, which means Vicky-T can see all two and a half months that it’s been written in blonde.

“Big debut,” she says, “figured you could use a hand,” and then she’s behind the bar with Vicky-T like nothing’s happened, polishing glasses and putting them back instinctively in the right places.

 _What_ , Vicky-T wants to say, or, _why are you back_ , or _God, you look good_. Instead she says, “Pass me that rag?”

Z tosses it over, obviously leering at Gerard and Mikey as she does so, and Vicky-T -- she’s not jealous, right. She’s not a jealous person, but she just cannot be behind the bar right now, not with Z so close and acting like nothing’s happened, and so she drops the rag and goes for the back room before she says something she regrets or drops a glass or something.

She’s vaguely looking for Gabe, but instead she runs into Patrick, quite literally. “Whoa,” he says, and gets out of her way, thank God. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” she bites out, and crosses her arms, takes a deep breath and forces it out again. “Fine,” she says again, and this time she almost believes it.

“Okay,” Patrick says, “I mean. If you want, I’ll drop it, but you know I’ve known Pete forever, right?”

“No,” Vicky-T says, “I had _no idea_.” But she smiles.

“Well,” Patrick says, “I’m just saying. There’s not a lot I haven’t heard before, and I’m _really good_ at telling when someone’s bullshitting ‘fine’.”

If it were anyone else -- even Gabe, maybe -- Vicky-T would brush them off. Stone heart. Bullets and bracelets. But Patrick really is the type who won’t judge and won’t tell, and she’s so pissed.

“It’s Z,” she says, and Patrick is nice enough not to make a sympathetic face. “We slept together. Last time. And now she’s here like nothing fucking happened.”

“Ah,” Patrick says, light on the emphasis and careful with his tone. “And you haven’t talked about it, have you.”  
“If we’d talked about it, do you think I’d be back here?” Vicky-T asks. She doesn’t mean to be snippy -- or, she does, but not with Patrick -- but honestly, she’s fucking _pissed_. And she hates to admit it, but she’s used to being on the other side of this problem, and she doesn’t like feeling like the girl in the relationship, bullshit sexist thought that it is.

“Well,” Patrick says. “I guess. What do you want?”

And it’s so simple a question that Vicky-T’s too surprised to be angry for a second. _What does she want_.

“Thanks,” she says, quite fervently, and goes to the storage room, because they actually are low on beer. She gets one more crate than she can carry easily and thinks _what do I want_ over the burn in her arms; she isn’t sure of the answer, but it’s nice to be sure of the question.

++

Gerard is even better in front of a crowd than he is in rehearsal, and the energy is great in the club tonight. Vicky-T dances through her shift, as much as she can, a beat in her step and her movements, and forgets not to smile at Z, and by midnight forgets not to talk to her too.

“I missed you,” she even manages to admit, without meaning any more than the bare bones of it. “It’s been kind of dull back here without you.”

“Well,” Z says, “my life is always a rollercoaster of thrills and so on.” But she says it a bit like _missed you too_ , and Vicky-T catches herself smiling again, and has to turn away. It’s too much too soon, this easy cameraderie, this slipping back into old patterns. They’ve met _twice_ , for God’s sake -- but those times were so _good_ , and this one is too, when Vicky-T puts her guard down and lets it be.

“Do you think that’s the face he makes when he comes?” Z says, gesturing at Mikey, who’s onstage stripping expressionlessly, almost nonchalantly. The crowd is going _wild_.

“God!” Vicky-T says, and bursts out laughing. “You can’t just say shit like that, oh my God.”

“Watch me,” Z says smugly. “Also, is that -- did I hear you say that’s his _brother_ , over there, with the stockings? I think he has better legs than _me_.”

 _He doesn’t_ , Vicky-T thinks, because she’s not angry enough to be uncharitable right now. “Absolutely,” she says instead. “You cannot _imagine_ my face when I found out.”

Z grins wickedly. “Oh, I think I can,” she says, and Vicky-T hopes to God she isn’t blushing. She almost certainly is.

The last notes fade out and Katy Perry’s “E.T.” starts up as Gerard stalks onstage.

Z leans in, and Vicky-T thinks she’s going to make another quip, but instead she says, “Come home with me again.”

A lot of thoughts go through Vicky-T’s head very fast. First, _God, please_ , and then, _not again_ , and then something that feels a lot like bitterness. _What do I want_ , she thinks again, and then she thinks, _this._ And then, _but not like this_.

“No,” she says, and surprises herself.

Z, unsatisfyingly, barely reacts, just tilts her head. “Why?” she asks.

And there are like six reasons Vicky-T could give, but in the end she just says, “Because you didn’t leave a note.”

This time, Z actually looks taken aback, like she didn’t even realize that was a thing people do, and Vicky-T feels a hot, sick clench of satisfaction in the pit of her stomach. “You didn’t even _think_ about it, did you,” she says, more confused than anything.

“No?” Z says.

Which is -- it shouldn’t make Vicky-T feel better, but it does, somehow. “I want you to leave notes,” she says. “And I want your phone number.” What she really wants is to wake up next to Z, but. She’ll settle.

“Okay,” Z says, “I can do that.”

“And I want to see you more than once every three months,” Vicky-T says, because she’s on a roll now with the basic requirements of a functional relationship. It’s almost ridiculous. “I want to see you every week, if I can.”

Z is silent for a second. “Wait,” she says, “you’re talking about dating.”

“Yes,” Vicky-T says, “that thing two adults do when they like each other.”

Z wrinkles her nose at the word _adult_ (though not _like_ , so, small steps), but she shrugs one shoulder.

“Okay,” she says, “could be cool.”

 _Could be cool_ , Vicky-T thinks. _What the fuck am I getting into_. Still, she’s got butterflies in her stomach when she leans over and kisses Z. “Cool,” she says softly.

++

Z is leaning forward over the bar, palms flat on the hardwood.

“Zee and Gee,” she says, giggling, to Gerard who is sitting on a barstool in his silk stockings and a muscle tank.

It’s April and even in Chicago spring has finally started, loosening coat buttons and thawing parking spaces. It’s still cold enough that Gee yelps and runs for his sweater when Frank casually leans on the door and lets the air in, though.

Vicky-T smiles.

“You look good today,” she says. Z has come by in her yoga-teacher gear, cotton pants and soft tank top and ballet flats. It’s more casual than Vicky-T is used to seeing her, and there’s something about it that makes her feel domestic. Homey.

“Come to mine after?” she asks, and Z grimaces.

“I’m disgusting,” she says, “you’re sweet but I look like shit,” and Vicky-T sighs inwardly. It hasn’t taken her long to realize that Z likes sex to be a certain way, and that way requires a given amount of lace and lipstick, admittedly like most things in her life. Z doesn’t like other people to see her without her face on, so to speak.

“I am sweet,” Vicky-T says, “and you look good.”

Z purses her lips and goes back to cleaning glasses, which Vicky-T knows well enough at this point to recognize as a distinct lack of concession, but also a lack of interest. She doesn’t care enough to engage.

“Gee,” Vicky-T calls, “tell Z she looks nice.”

“Fuckin’ hot,” Gerard says, although he doesn’t actually look up when he says it, so Vicky-T isn’t sure how successful it is.

“Frank?” she calls.

“Very nice,” Frank says. 

Vicky-T almost keeps going -- but it’s not about winning at this point, it’s about hammering her point so far home that it’ll never be seen again. What she wants isn’t to compliment her girlfriend, it’s to get a reaction out of her, and that’s ridiculous. (The fact that she has to resort to this is ridiculous.)

So she stops trying.

++

The thing is, when it isn’t completely maddening, when Vicky-T isn’t frustrated out of her mind, hackles permanently up, it’s good. It’s really fucking good.

It’s May and there’s a warm breeze blowing through Z’s third-floor window, tickling Vicky-T’s hair against the nape of her neck. It feels good and she leans back into it, letting her ponytail trace its way down her spine.

“Hey,” Z says, “a little appreciation.”

“I didn’t forget about you,” Vicky-T says, and looks down at where Z is settled between her legs, curled on the floor and stroking circles into her thighs. “You’re making your presence known, don’t worry.”

“Good,” Z says, and goes back to tracing her slow way up Vicky-T’s legs, nudging her skirt up further and further, and that’s it. No further argument.

Z’s hair is short again for spring, feather-soft under Vicky-T’s fingers and shining in the morning sunlight. Vicky-T’s skin is still sleep-smooth and sensitive, and even Z’s fingers on her thighs send her shivering. Z mouths at the lace of her underwear, breath hot, and Vicky-T arches into it, letting her eyes fall closed and thinking of nothing at all but the press of Z’s fingers, the curl of her tongue, chasing sensation and shifting further and further forward until she’s right on the edge of the seat.

“You like that?” Z says, and Vicky-T is jerked back into the moment, opens her eyes. She hadn’t even noticed Z doing anything different, just that it felt good and that she hadn’t wanted it to stop. She says so.

“Just checking,” Z says, smug, and goes back to -- whatever it was, honestly, Vicky-T doesn’t know, just knows that she gets off faster when she closes her eyes and doesn’t let Z’s ego get in the way, lets herself get caught up in feeling and not thinking.

The thing is, and, right, this is not something that should be occurring to Vicky-T during sex, right. It shouldn’t actually be occurring to Vicky-T at all, because Z really does care about her. It shows in the way she tries, the little notes she leaves, stilted as they are, and the way she curls around Vicky-T in her sleep, but. She seems so proud of herself, for this, for the flowers she buys, for the kisses when she gets to work, as if being Vicky-T’s girlfriend is a challenge she’s set for herself and she’s passing with flying colors. If Vicky-T looks down right now, lets herself peek, she’s sure Z will still be smiling. It just won’t be at Vicky-T. Z’s entirely caught up in what this is for herself, because that’s what girlfriends _do_ \-- make coffee, make appointments, make each other come -- but the thing is, Vicky-T does it because Z makes her want to, and Z also does it because Z makes herself want to.

Vicky-T does come, breathing hard, a moment later, and bites her lip, smiles down at Z, who’s got one of her filthy-happy smiles on, running her thumb across her lower lip. “Well,” she says, “are you coming up here or what?”

Z scrambles up in her lap and kisses her.

“That was nice,” she says, “but I have to jet, unless you want to come to work with me.”

Vicky-T shakes her head, and then Z’s out of her arms and off downstairs, and she’s alone in the room, settling her skirt back over her hips.

It was nice, she thinks, and then she does Z’s dishes, as a nice surprise. Because she’s a good girlfriend.

++

“Your daddy’s rich,” Vicky-T sings to Z, “and your mama’s good-looking.”

“True on both counts,” Z says, stopping her singing. It’s hot for a midsummer day and the air is still, the lake like glass. Z’s wearing a string bikini and one of those long transparent shirts -- Vicky-T has no idea where she even buys her clothes, let alone her impressive collection of sunglasses, which she tips down now, looking over the tops of them at Vicky-T. “What’s your boy _wearing_?” she says.

Vicky-T groans; she means Gabe, obviously, who is in tiny red-white-and-blue trunks, lime-green flip-flops, and violent purple shutter shades. He’s kind of hard to miss, even in a company that consists of Patrick never-nude Stump and Gerard’s new Kool-Aid hair. “He’s not my boy when he looks like that,” she says, though privately she thinks he’s making the most of it. He’s trying to persuade Mikey to come into the water, which given Mikey is in jeans seems to be an uphill endeavor. She gives Gabe ten minutes until he resorts to a bridal carry.

Further up the beach, Pete is defying both hygiene and personal safety, barbecuing shirtless while Patrick hovers nervously. Z and Vicky-T are watching the beers, because it’s kind of their job, although this mostly means watching how much Bill can put away with not a small amount of awe. Frank, sprawled on a deck chair next to Bill, takes up literally half the same surface area. The other half is taken up by Gerard, who, it turns out, does not burn in the sunlight after all, which is sort of a relief. “Food,” Pete whoops, because apparently not sustaining minor burns to the torso is a cause for celebration, and Travie approaches, juggling paper plates overflowing with portobello caps and burgers for the carnivores among them.

“Bill, my boy,” he says, “are you just going to lie there looking pretty, or do you want to do some work for your food?”

“Pretty,” Bill says. “No question about it.”

“Ah well,” Travie says, and balances a plate on Bill’s hipbones. “Be a pretty table in that case.”

“Only the prettiest for you,” Bill says. Vicky-T thinks maybe the sun and beer are finally getting to his head, which is almost a relief. Boy can _drink_.

“Ladies,” Travie says, and Vicky-T smiles, a lazy summery _the sky is blue and things are good_ smile.

“Travie,” she says. “Still want that hand with the plates?”

“Nah,” Travie says, “you look comfortable,” and she is.

Somewhere in the distance, Mikey Way makes a distinctly undignified noise as Gabe hits his ten-minute limit. Vicky-T leans against her girlfriend in the hot sun, watches her friends compete over how many burgers (or mushrooms) they can eat, her friends from her steady job which she is good at and is not going to lose, and realizes she is, in fact, more comfortable than she’s been since high school, when she constantly felt like she was too big for her skin. She doesn’t feel that way now, exactly, but the awareness of how _settled_ she is pricks at her.

“Something wrong?” Z says, with that intuition she tends to show at the worst possible times, when Vicky-T isn’t sure how to answer, and not sure what she’d say anyway.

“Nothing,” she says instead, and gives her a kiss to Bill’s lazy whoop. 

It’s honest, to be fair. Vicky-T has been waiting for something most of her life -- for her first time with her first boyfriend, for high school to end already, for the next job and next apartment and next date. Suddenly she’s got all those things sorted and there’s nothing she doesn’t have -- nothing around the corner. She’s not sure she likes it.

There’s a splash and a screech of the sort Vicky-T hasn’t heard since the neighbor-cat / lawn-sprinkler episode of ‘01. Frank giggles, and Gerard tilts his head back and sighs.

“Ah,” Z says. “Young love.”

Gabe trudges up to the picnic area a moment later, hair drenched and pouting.

“He took my shutter shades,” he says.

“ _They sleep with the fishes now_ ,” Mikey says in the distance, vindictive and triumphant.

“Help me, Vicky-T, you’re my only hope,” Gabe says, hands clasped, and then Vicky-T loses her introspection in splashes and sweet, sweet revenge.

++

Vicky-T has actually worked with Gabe twice before this job.

The first time was at Starbucks.

Starbucks had lasted about four weeks for each of them, and only two of those overlapped, but they were the better two. Vicky-T was nineteen and finally living away from home for the first time; Gabe was twenty-four and, as he said with fake nonchalance, “trying out this going legit thing.”

They were not good representatives of the corporate philosophy.

Vicky-T hadn’t really expected to see Gabe again, after, but a few years later she got a barista job at this gentrification-chic indie shop and he was there, older and, presumably, wiser, though not in any way she could tell.

The shop had been a hellhole run by a UChicago grad who didn’t know the first thing about anything but cutesy sidewalk chalkboards, and who had in equal measure a fondness for taking a spin behind the bar and complete ignorance about anything to do with actually making coffee. This had turned out to be the ideal environment for a friendship between two people whose main love languages were wisecracks and bad decisions to flourish, which had presumably been why Gabe invited her along to Angels and Kings, and why even now when they’ve been working on different sides of the bar for, _what_ , Vicky-T thinks, _nearly a year now_ , they can get a banter going at the drop of a hat.

“What’s a fancy dame like you doing in a joint like this,” Gabe says, one elbow on the bar, talking from the side of his mouth and, in general, looking like even more of an asshole in the process.

“I could say the same of you,” Vicky-T says, looking up from under her bangs, mock-coy. Z’s in the back putting new stock on the shelves, and she feels a little freer to flirt -- Z gets jealous in a way that’s sweet but a pain to deal with.

“Is that so?” Gabe says. “I’m just a humble private dick, ma’am.”

“Oh _good_ ,” says Vicky-T, “I’ve been looking to hire one of those,” and they both pause and grin at each other.

“How you been, _mija_ ,” Gabe says, in what passes for a serious tone with him, and Vicky sighs.

“You ever feel _too_ legit, Gabe?”

Gabe laughs. “That’s a hell of a loaded question.”

“Yeah,” she says, because. She can’t quite say she gets where Gabe’s coming from, but she has some idea.

Gabe frowns. “Nobody likes to feel safe, Vicky-T. Or at least, no one in this club.”

Vicky-T blows air out through her nose. “Well, at least I’m not alone in being fucked up.”

Gabe’s silent for a second, and Vicky-T is afraid he’s just going to tell her she’s not fucked up, but instead he reaches over the bar and pulls down a couple beer bottles, cracks them open.

“To us fucked-up kids,” he says, handing her one, and takes a long drink before he comes up for air.

“Here’s to the kids,” Vicky-T agrees, and raises her bottle. “Or,” she adds, grinning, “one kid and one old man.”

“Harsh,” Gabe says, mock-offended. “I didn’t even know babies could be that mean.” He pulls himself up to sit on the bar and pats the spot next to him. It’s actually something of a challenge to get up there from the inside, but Vicky-T manages, lets him put his head on her shoulder.

“Listen,” Gabe says, “I’ve talked to Bill a little, and I’m gonna talk to Travie, but. You’re first on my list, to be honest.”

“Need a kidney?” Vicky-T asks.

“Something like,” Gabe says. “How do you feel about New York?”

It’s another loaded question -- New York is _home_ , slick pavement and dirty playgrounds and slushy crosswalks in the winter, but she hasn’t been there since she was twelve and it’s got a childhood haze in her mind.

“Good,” she settles on, and Gabe makes a sound she feels against her chest as much as hears.

“I’m thinking about running away from home,” he says, “wanna come with?”

 _God, yes_ , Vicky-T thinks, and then Z walks in and she bites her lip. “Let me get back to you,” she whispers into Gabe’s ear, and negotiates climbing down from the bar, and doesn’t mention it when Z comes over and asks what they’ve been getting up to.

++

The sun isn’t up yet but the clock is saying _early_ more than _late_ by the time they get home -- always to Z’s place, because Vicky-T has roommates and thin walls, or at least that’s the excuse for it always being Z’s place. When Z kisses her, reaching around Vicky-T to drop her keys in the bowl on the hall table, it’s softer and sweeter than it’s been in a while, as if they’re both there in the same moment for once. “Let’s go to bed,” Z says, and Vicky-T laughs a little, because Z _still_ hasn’t replaced that mattress on the floor even though Vicky-T knows she can afford to.

“Don’t hold it against me if I fall asleep on you,” she says, because she’s through tired now to that odd early-morning energy that always precedes a crash for her, and Z laughs.

“Not a chance,” she says, and Vicky-T doesn’t ask her to clarify. Vicky-T hasn’t in a while.

Bed is soft, and warm, and feels like home; Z is a solid comforting weight above Vicky-T, one thigh between her legs, and Vicky-T rocks up and gasps, thumb stroking Z’s hip, eyes half-closed. Z leans down and kisses her eyelids, whispers “look at me,” so Vicky-T does; she’s gorgeous, of course, as beautiful as that first day she walked into the club. 

“Still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” Vicky-T says, and Z laughs and hums something Vicky-T doesn’t catch. She doesn’t press the point, either, but it feels like a night to say some of the things she’s been thinking for a year and mean them, before -- well.

“And you’re a flatterer and a flirt,” Z says. “’S why I like you.”

Vicky-T reaches up and thumbs over Z’s breast, then her lip, because she really doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s all genuine -- she doesn’t have it in her to lie, not about that, and not for that long, anyway, but. She’s tired. She’s so fucking tired, and it’s nice to be able to show what she means, instead. Instead of more empty words, and the same sentences over and over that just don’t seem to register.

She rocks up against Z again, harder this time, with intent, and Z picks up on it, bears down against her, eyes sparkling. “Yeah?” she breathes, and Vicky-T nods, pulls her down by the hips.

Z grins, big and beautiful and effervescent, and Vicky-T feels New York like a weight on her ribs, Gabe like a tug at her stomach, that waiting feeling catching in her throat. Suddenly she wants nothing more than to make Z come, fast and hard and dirty, because she _can,_ and she knots the fingers of her left hand in Z’s hair, bites down on Z’s lip, and presses up harder, harder, chasing friction and pressure and even pain. Anything to remind her of that first night, and how everything seemed possible and perfect, Z in the doorway, her heart in her throat.

When she comes, Vicky-T thinks, for one last moment, that love might be enough; that this might, somehow, work out; that Z will buy a bed and Vicky-T will learn to coast and they will be some form of happy, or even okay. Vicky-T wants to think she would settle for okay.

“Nice work,” Z says, collapsing on top of her, and like that, the moment is gone.

“Nice work,” Vicky-T says, because she’s been dating Z for not-quite six months, because they have routines and patterns and after-sex rituals, and then she curls around her armful of small wiry blonde and falls almost instantly asleep.

++

Vicky-T flies out of Midway, her last act as a Chicagoan. She’d been hoping for a last view of the city, something poignant to remember the moment by, but it’s raining, and all she sees is grey. Which is, she supposes, poignant in its own way.

It’s a bit of an extravagance, flying to New York -- Gabe and the boys have gone on ahead in a truck they rented -- but she never has before, and all her things fit in two suitcases and a carry-on, so she spent a little bit of her moving savings to make it happen. Gabe will give her a break on her half of first month’s rent if she needs it, anyway.

She gives herself a minute to feel sad -- about the friends she’ll be miles away from, the stability she dropped the moment she had the chance, New Year’s and summer and everything in between -- and, to her not-very-great surprise, doesn’t have it in herself to cry.

Light floods the cabin as they hit the cloud barrier, and Vicky-T presses her face to the window now like she didn’t when the city was shooting away underneath her. She feels almost like she’s crossing the ocean, like the clouds are a rolling sea, and she’s glad she paid for the plane ticket, and now she starts to cry after all. Not out of sadness, now, but out of how beautiful it is, out of hope maybe.

The kid next to her kicks her trying to get his long legs under him on the seat, and she smiles at him and then she’s laughing and crying at the same time, and he looks quizzical, like he’s trying to figure out how one human can have that many emotions at the same time.

“I promise I’m fine,” Vicky-T says, and repurposes her tiny drink napkin as a tissue. “Bartender’s trick,” she says, grinning at him, and then she looks out the window again, forward toward New York.


End file.
